Did you know you can support Fibromyalgia Support for Surrey and Sussex (FMSSAS) every time you shop online - at no cost to you?

With ‘Give as you Live’ thousands of brands including Play.com, John Lewis and Expedia have signed up to donate a percentage of every purchase you make online to us. All at no cost to you and at no cost to us.

Simply visit http://www.giveasyoulive.com/join/fmssas and discover ‘Give as you Live’ today. If you sign up by 31st March 2012 ‘Give as you Live’ will donate an additional £5 to us after you spend £10 or more.

ICIS can help you! We gather information about support, care and advice services, suppliers, clubs and activities in West Sussex. We can help you find services, groups and opportunities to help you maintain your health, wellbeing and independence. Contact our Enquiry Line and we will search our West Sussex and national databases and reference library to find you help. Or search the ICIS Wellbeing & Community Directory (an extract of our full Directory) to find day-to-day help. ICIS can help you find services you may not know exist.

Pre-booking is essential if you wantto attend the largest annual voluntary sector event in East Sussex onTuesday 13 Marchat the Winter Gardens, Eastbourne, from 9.40am to 2.30pm.

What will 2012 bringfor voluntary and community groups?
How will groups be affected by recent changes to national policy?
What will be gained and what will be lost?

The event will focus on changes to Health and Social Care, and Welfare and Legal Aid.

The Big Event 2012 will feature local and regional speakers, a Q&A session and discussion groups. There will also be an advice fair offering information about free and low-cost services for organisations (including IT support, training and funding advice).

Is your fibromyalgia becoming more unmanageable and is staying awake during the day a constant struggle? Both of these situations can make you wonder, “What can I do to get out of this rut?” Two experienced clinicians describe common reasons for why fibro symptoms can worsen and offer their treatment advice to help you get back on your feet.

If you're suffering with fibromyalgia, there's a good chance you might also be having a difficult time enjoying a good night's sleep. Those who have fibromyalgia report a wide range of sleep difficulties, including a hard time getting to sleep, continual awakening throughout the night, as well as sleep apnea (characterized by abnormal breathing) and restless leg syndrome (an overwhelming urge to move the legs).

More than 30 million Americans suffer with migraine headaches, and most are women. Although doctors aren’t sure what causes all of them, they suspect more than a quarter of migraine sufferers have specific food triggers. To find out if a particular food is causing your headache, keep a diet diary for at least a month and pay special attention to the most common food triggers. Read more:-

Migraines and other types of headache - such as tension headache and sinus headache - are painful and can rob you of quality of life. Migraines affect around 15% of adults in the UK. Migraine symptoms include a pounding headache, nausea, vomiting and light sensitivity. Headache remedies include various types of pain killers. Migraine treatments may also include anti-sickness drugs and medications to prevent or stop headaches.

We know that diet/nutrition plays an important role is some chronic pain conditions. For example with migraine sometimes just changing your diet may resolve the problem. Another condition, gout (high uric acid levels) can also be triggered or exacerbated by some foods and alcohol. In this discussion I want to share some results I discovered on the role of Vitamin D and some chronic pain conditions.

In a recent issue of Arthritis Research & Therapy, Ribeiro and colleagues [1] present data that lend further support to the theory that women with fibromyalgia (FM) suffer from autonomic dysfunction in response to, and during recovery from, acute exercise. Alterations in autonomic function have been suggested to increase the risk for cardiovascular events and mortality [2]. While the data are not fully understood regarding the risk of premature cardiovascular disease in women with FM specifically, it appears that there is definitive evidence to support autonomic dysfunction at rest.

The more I try to learn about the cause of fibromyalgia, the more I just get confused. Some sources say it's caused by autoimmune diseases, some say it's hereditary, some say it's because of a virus or a neck injury or diet or chronic stress, and recently someone told me it's caused by depression. What really is the cause of fibromyalgia?

N.B. I would like to point out to you all that the information in my eNewsletters does not necessarily infer endorsement by the charity Fibromyalgia Support for Surrey & Sussex. Any advice or recommendation of a medical or legal nature must always be discussed with a qualified professional. The charity cannot be held responsible for omissions and/or errors.

Sites I refer you to are for information only. They might conflict in their opinions, they might not even be medically sound, but I merely offer them for you to peruse and make your own judgements, accept or reject as you will. Only by reading widely can we get an overall picture of fibromyalgia syndrome and how we can deal with its symptoms, learn to cope with them and still have a life.

I also include various awareness and local issues as well as general health considerations.Anyone wishing to reproduce any of the above items in printed form should seek permission from the originators.

About Me

I am a FMS survivor having been diagnosed in 2003. I have worked, on a voluntary basis, in many capacities since 2004 with the charity Fibromyalgia Support for Surrey and Sussex. I aim to post an eNewsletter (eNews) every week, usually on a Saturday giving links to information about fibromyalgia and related subjects, general health issues, health service and government plans, social benefits, therapies, books, ebooks, etc. etc.
I also maintain the website www.fms-sas.co.uk, am leader of the Horsham Support Group and am a trustee of the charity. As well as all this I am Assistant Regional Co-ordinator for Surrey and Sussex for the Fibromyalgia Association UK (FMA UK).